


Virtue #3 -- Charity

by NyteFlyer



Series: Virtues [3]
Category: Donald Strachey Mysteries (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Gay Relationship, Drama, Gay Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-21
Updated: 2010-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 07:38:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/134725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyteFlyer/pseuds/NyteFlyer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donald doesn't exactly have a charitable nature....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virtue #3 -- Charity

The world’s a sweeter smelling place once you pull your head out of your own ass.

On that snowy February night when Timmy and I said those three words for the first time, those three words that sound simple as hell but change everything, he and I went to bed and didn’t get up again for four days. He called in sick Thursday and Friday -- something he never does -- and I cancelled the few appointments I had so we could hole up together in my chilly apartment and get better acquainted with the guys we’d just given our hearts to.

Over that long, lazy weekend, I got to know Timmy -- I mean really _know_ him -- the way I’d never known anyone before. I learned his strengths and his faults, what he longed for and what terrified him, what made him happy and what made him hurt. He didn’t hold a goddamned thing back and neither did I, except for one. I wasn’t ready to open that box just yet. But even then, I knew the day would come when I would pour out the pain that was Kyle, and that I could trust him to listen and understand. 

We talked and slept and made love, sticking our noses out from under the covers just long enough to make a bathroom run or order take-out, then dove back under again to repeat the cycle. Timmy insisted we share a shower once a day, which just gave us an excuse to extend the fun and games into a slightly different playground. And of course the sheets eventually got to the point where even I had to admit they were going to mutate into a new life form if we didn’t take a time-out and change them. We did what we had to do as fast as we could do it, then we were back in the sack, tied together in a knot again. 

When it hit us that we were really in it for the long haul, we were finally able to just chill out and be happy. He stopped walking on eggshells, waiting for me to feel suffocated and run screaming out the door. I stopped wondering what a guy like him could possibly see in a guy like me. In between wrestling matches and mush talk, we bickered like an old married couple. I ragged him about his designer underwear and the way he folded the dirty sheets into perfect squares before tossing them in the hamper, while he carped at me about the crunchy socks under the bed and the fool I’d made of myself on our second date. 

I’ve never remembered much about that night, which I guess you could consider a blessing considering the fact that I’d been a total basket case and drunk myself into an assholish stupor. All I’ve retained is a nightmarish vision of myself flirting with some Hell’s Angels junior leaguer because I was terrified to look Tim in the eye, convinced he had to be as disgusted with me as I was with myself. I have a vague memory of him being surreally kind and seeing me home safe in spite of the fact that he was obviously pissed. And I do remember slurring out some half-assed apology about not being able to get it up as he stripped me and poured me into bed. 

"There are a thousand ways for two men to be intimate, Donald, and nine hundred and ninety-six of them have nothing to do with sex," he’d said as he’d tucked me in and placed an empty wastebasket within easy reach, just in case. Yeah, right. At the time, I’d thought he was crazy. But let me tell you, he spent every minute of that long February weekend proving just how right he‘d been. 

Oh, the sex was still there, believe me. Timmy may look all sweet and innocent, and in a lot of ways, I guess he is. But beneath the surface? The man’s freaking insatiable. He had the stamina of a marathon runner, and that combined with his creativity and that weirdly random sense of humor of his made every go-round between the sheets something to remember. Playful one second and intense the next, with no natural inhibitors I could see -- that was my Timmy. 

Above and beyond all that, it was his charitable nature that made him stand apart from the crowd. He knew exactly what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to ask for it, but the point is, he always did ask, if not in words, in a more basic language, always waiting for a glance or a nod or some sound of pleasure from me before charging ahead with something he hadn’t tried on me before. What he knew I liked, he always gave willingly. He had no boundaries to speak of, but he sensed that I did, and when he found one, he changed tactics so fast and with so much grace I barely realized a line had been crossed at all. Whether he was wearing a tux and playing the diplomat at some boring as hell political gathering, or glassy-eyed with lust and covered with sweat in the sack with me, the one thing you could say about Timothy Callahan was that he was always, _always_ a gentleman.

Considering I’d spent the last couple of years making the acquaintance of every gay dick in the greater Albany area, this’ll probably sound pretty weird coming from me. But I can honestly say I learned everything I know about making love from Timmy. With Kyle and me, we were always fired up and frantic, desperate to give what we had to give and get what we needed to get, each of us with one eye on the door and the other on the clock, terrified someone would walk in at the wrong minute and catch us --literally -- with our pants down. We never exactly had the chance to explore the subtleties of lovemaking, as much as I wished we could have. And during my not-so-illustrious career as Donald Strachey, Gay Slut, I’d pretty much looked at sex as a base act. It was cold and anonymous and vaguely humiliating, something unpleasant I had to do to satisfy a physical need, with all the glamour and allure of taking a dump in a public john. But there was nothing base about being with Timmy. 

With Timmy, sex was never just sex. It always meant something. Hell, it always meant _everything_. And even if he went a little crazy sometimes, even if he got rough, he was tender, too, and always put my needs before his own. His own needs were simple enough. He needed closeness the way the grass needs water and sun, he needed to know that what he was doing made me happy. And as much as the concept was blowing my mind, I was starting to get the message that more than anything else, he needed me.

Up to that point, everybody in my life had gone out of their way to let me know how expendable I was. It kind of freaked me out at first, finding someone who didn’t exactly agree with the general consensus. Unlike Tim, I don’t exactly have a charitable nature. Any natural inclinations I had along those lines self-destructed the day the whole army thing blew up in my face, and since then, my philosophy had pretty much been every man for himself. But meeting Timmy and falling for him, seeing what it felt like to have him fall for me, that made me want to start giving again. He made me so happy, you know? It only seemed fair to try and return the favor.

Somewhere between Saturday night and Sunday morning, I woke up screaming, unable to shake the image of that endless sea of red, the side of that tent splattered with blood and hair and brain and bone, those bulging, lifeless eyes that have haunted my sleep since the day of my discharge. 

I know I must have scared Timmy shitless, thrashing and yelling and fighting him with everything I had as he tried to calm me down. But he didn’t back down, and he didn’t ask what was wrong or push for details. Instead, he somehow managed to gather me up, pinning my arms to my side and pressing my face firmly into the crook of his neck, rocking me and crooning, "Baby. Oh, no, no, baby. It’s all right. I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you," until I stopped just hearing a soothing drone and recognized actual words, recognized the arms around me as something real and warm and most of all his, not the cold and lifeless limbs from my dream. Once I stopped fighting him, he loosened his grip just long enough for me to slip my arms around him as well. Then he clamped down again and kept right on rocking me, stroking my hair and murmuring comforting nonsense until I went limp and loose like a rag doll in his arms. 

He eased me down on the bed and curled himself around me, wrapping us both in a tight cocoon of blankets and quilts. He kissed my eyelids, my forehead, the top of my head. "I love you," he whispered. "I’m here. I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you."

He had me, all right. 

* * * *

From the outside looking in, people automatically assume Timmy’s the grownup in the relationship. For the most part, they’re right. I’m a big kid and I know it, and Timmy’s damned good at drawing that kid out and giving him room to play. He’s a caretaker type through and through, and he’s never happy unless he’s fussing over me. Or when he thinks I need it, fussing _at_ me. But Timmy has a secret. It’s easy to overlook because he seems so self-sufficient, and he stays so goddamned busy trying to take care of everyone else, you wouldn’t think he had time to worry about himself. But it’s there, and that weekend, he let me in on it for the first time.    
  
Timmy kinda needs to be taken care of, too.    
  
He was living such a behind-the-scenes existence, ghost-writing speeches or organizing fundraisers in the name of that dickwad congressman, quietly doing the dirty work and letting the stuffy old geezer take all the credit. I figured he deserved to be more than just a forgotten member of the supporting cast. As far as I was concerned, he was the main attraction, and I made it my business to make sure he got the star treatment he deserved. Without saying a word out loud, I made a promise to him and to myself that as long as I lived, he’d never feel like nobody was taking care of him again.    
  
By the time Monday morning rolled around, a subtle shift had taken place between us. I emerged from that apartment feeling fiercely protective of him, wanting to indulge him, to look out for him, to let him know how proud I was to be his. As queasy as the idea made me, I’d forced myself out of bed at an ungodly ugly hour so we could eat breakfast and shower together. Then I drove him back to his place so he could change into a cleaned and pressed Brooks Brothers special before I took him to work. He said I didn’t have to do it, of course. Yeah, right. It was still slick out and cold as hell, and I wasn’t about to let him spend half the morning shivering alone at some shitty bus stop. Not on my watch.    
  
When we pulled up in front of his building, I jumped out fast and got his door for him, my heart tap dancing against my ribcage at the look he gave me, all embarrassed and pleased and kind of flustered at once. Then I walked him up the steps, so close our shoulders bumped together, his briefcase tucked under my left arm. At the top, I turned toward him, and after making sure no one was looking, slipped my hand into his.   
  
"Guess this is where I have to let you go, huh?"   
  
A couple of guys in top-dollar suits walked by, and I tried to pull free, but Tim tightened his grip on my hand, his eyes locked on mine. "Walk me in," he said quietly. "Or better yet, come by my office for lunch. There won’t be much going on today, and I should be free around twelve-thirty or one. We can have something delivered if you like."   
  
"Can’t," I said, giving his fingers a squeeze. "I’ve got a new client coming in at ten, then I’ve gotta do some legwork that’ll keep me busy until seven or eight."   
  
If he was disappointed, he was careful not to let it show. "I understand. Then I guess I’ll see you…"   
  
"Tonight," I said, surprising the hell out of both of us by tugging him close and nailing him with a no-nonsense kiss right there in front of God and Tim’s colleagues and everyone else who was crazy enough to be out and about in Albany on an icy Monday morning. "You’ll see me tonight."    
  
I went to the office to catch up on filing and paying bills and all the other miscellaneous crap I’d been neglecting the last few weeks. I even straightened the place up some, cleaned the coffeemaker and started a fresh pot. Not my favorite way to spend the morning, but it kept me busy, kept me from jumping out of my skin when I thought of all the tedious hours I’d have kill before I could see Timmy again. A few minutes before ten, the new client showed up, a tiny blond most straight guys would give their right nuts to get a piece of. She was nervous, so I poured her some coffee and chatted her up for a while, not quite flirting but not quite _not_ , just to get her to chill out and tell me why she was there.    
  
Another cheating husband. No surprise there. But it was my turn to tense up when she flashed me a pic of her husband, Charles, and told me with bottom lip trembling and big green eyes about to overflow at any moment that she thought he might be sleeping around with other guys. One look at the photo and I knew she was right. Hell, good old Chuck had sucked me off in the front seat of his Trailblazer maybe three months prior, and he’d done a reasonably good job of it, too. Which left me with what I guess you could call a conflict of interest.

I felt sorry for the lady, I really did. She seemed nice enough, and she obviously loved the two-timing prick. She deserved a better life than the one she was living, sitting home with the kids night after night while Chuck the closet case queer gobbled random dick in the family SUV. On the other hand, the thought of outing a brother hit a nerve, and it made me think about some not-quite-buried pieces of my past I would have just as soon forgotten. 

In the end, I took the case, deciding that cheating on the nice lady outweighed the fact that he was just doing what too many gay guys did because they didn’t have the balls or the brains to take a chance on something better. Besides, I needed the money. 

Once she’d handed over my retainer and headed out the door, I pulled out my cell and dialed Timmy’s number, suddenly needing to hear his voice and let him know how grateful I was that for me, anyway, getting anonymous SUV head from guys named Chuck was finally a thing of the past. But he didn’t pick up, and when the call went to voicemail, I snapped the phone shut without leaving a message. Half a minute later, a text came through.

  
_In a meeting. I miss you.  
_   
  
Grinning like the lovesick moron I guess I was, I sent back, _Miss you, too,_ followed by a detailed account of what I intended to do to him once we were naked together and in bed again. A few minutes went by, and I figured he was either too busy or too scandalized to respond. Then my phone chirped. __

That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard. I’m shocked. I’m horrified. I can’t wait.

I spent the rest of the day in a happy fog, going through the motions of checking out background information on one guy, documenting the random comings and goings of another. It was no-brainer stuff, the kind of assignments I could easily handle on autopilot. The next night I’d have to start tailing Closet Case Chuck, following him from one watering hole to the next until we both got lucky and I could snap off a few shots of him on his knees in some alley or creeping into a bathroom stall at The Pit, hand-in-hand with his BJ _du jour_. A depressing thought, and one I didn’t want to waste brain cells on. My mind was across town in a small but tastefully decorated office, tracking the most beautiful man alive as he juggled phone calls and pushed papers, maybe smiling that soft, sweet smile of his from time to time as he went through the motions, too, waiting for the day to end so we could kick-start the night. 

At seven on the dot, I called it quits and drove to the liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine. It was the first time I’d been inside; I usually did business through the drive-thru. But I wanted to surprise Timmy with something nice, and since I didn’t know shit about the stuff, I needed advice. The clerk hooked me up with a moderately priced pinot noir, which I remembered Tim saying he liked, then pointed toward a display of fresh-cut flowers near the front counter. 

"If you’re setting the mood for a little romance, you’ll want some of those, too," she said, grinning. 

I walked over to take a look, feeling kind of silly because I’d never even thought about buying a guy flowers before, but at the same time feeling like giving Timmy flowers was the most natural thing in the world. Since I knew even less about flowers than I did about wine, I gave the clerk my best little-boy-lost look.

"Take her roses, of course," she said.

Usually I let that kind of thing slide, but for some reason that night, the pronoun grated on me. "Him," I said, glancing at the woman to gauge her reaction. If anything, her grin got even bigger, and I could have sworn she added a dimple to the mix.

"Red’s a classic," she said, pointing out a six-count bunch of blood-colored buds mixed with baby’s breath. "If we add some fern, I bet he’ll love it."

The color made my skin crawl. "Tim’s a classic kind of guy," I said, forcing a smile, "but I want something a little different. Something that’s not what everybody else gets. What about these?" I asked, picking up the bouquet beside the bloody one and taking a quick sniff. The buds were a soft, buttery yellow with pink tips. They looked like candy flowers, the ones made of icing on a wedding cake. 

"Peace roses are my favorite," she said. "You have a good eye. And a good heart."

Peace. That was exactly what Timmy made me feel. "I’ll take them," I said.

I was getting hungry and knew Timmy probably hadn’t eaten yet, either. I dialed his number, intending to ask if he’d like me to pick up some Thai on the way over or if he’d rather go out. But he didn’t answer, so I decided to just drive straight to his place and sort it out there. When I got to the apartment, I knocked long and loud without getting a response. I didn’t really worry, though. He was without a doubt the most obsessively clean person on the planet, so I assumed he was in the shower. I fished the key he had given me out of my pocket and let myself in. 

"Honey, I’m home!" I called out, thinking that corny old line would give him a chuckle. I did hear a noise coming from the bathroom, but it sure as hell wasn’t a laugh. Dropping the wine and roses into a chair near the door, I rushed through the bedroom and into the john, where I found him on his knees, retching miserably.

I stood over him for about half a minute, shifting my weight from foot to foot. Timmy was the nurturing one, and dealing with this kind of stuff came as naturally to him as breathing. Me, I just felt useless and awkward. I hated that he was sick and wished like hell I could make it better, but I had no idea how to go about it. Then I remembered that second date of ours, and how he’d held me while I barfed up those fourteen martinis he claims I drank and stroked my hair, then bathed my face with a cool washcloth and helped me back to bed. It had felt good, knowing he was there, feeling his hands on me, hearing his voice telling me everything was going to be okay. It hadn’t made me any less sick, but in other ways, more important ways, it had made me feel a hell of a lot better.

I dropped to my knees beside him, looping an arm around his waist and shifting his weight so he was leaning more on me than on that cold, hard toilet. He was drenched in sweat and shaking, his face even paler than that porcelain rim he’d been clutching. When he’d brought up all he had to bring up, I flushed the toilet and closed the lid, then maneuvered us both into a sitting position. As I dabbed his mouth with a wad of tissue, he let his head loll on my shoulder, moaning softly. 

"I’m sorry," he whispered so faintly I could barely hear him. 

"What the hell for?" My voice wasn’t loud, but he flinched at the sound, his whole body jerking like I’d just pounded him with a sledgehammer. Then I got it, and my heart sank. "Migraine?" I asked, being careful to keep my voice low and even.

"Migraine," he breathed. 

I knew the damned things sometimes knocked him on his ass for two or three days at a time, sleepless and sick and in horrible pain, but that was the first time I’d seen it first hand. He’d cancelled a date because he’d felt one coming on a few weeks before, and when I’d half-heartedly asked if anyone was there to look after him, he’d said, "I‘ll be okay, Don. I‘m not very good company right now, anyway." Being around sick people’d always made me squirm, and when they saw that, it usually made them squirm, too, so I figured he’d be better off without me there. In other words, I’d taken the easy way out. But I hadn’t felt very good about myself for a long time after. 

His glasses were speckled and smudged, and his face was so slick with sweat they kept sliding down his nose. I eased them off and set them on the edge of the sink, making a mental note to clean them for him later. Knowing what the inside of his mouth was bound to taste like, I brought him his toothbrush and a cup of water, then helped him kneel over the toilet again to rinse and spit. Once I’d put the toothbrush away, I braced him as he slowly stood and peeled off his sweat-soaked clothes, then stripped down, too, and got us both into the shower. 

I made it fast and to the point, holding him more or less upright as I soaped him up and rinsed him down. He kept trying to hold his head, but I made him hold onto me instead as I toweled him off, trying to hurry so he wouldn’t get cold and start shaking again, but being careful, too, because I was scared to death old bull-in-a-china-shop me might be too rough and make him feel worse instead of better. I walked him back to the bedroom, still supporting him with one arm as he stumbled and swayed against me, then bundled him into bed, fluffing his pillows the way they do in the movies and tucking the covers up under his chin. I felt his face. He was still about 12 shades paler than normal, and his skin was cold to the touch. Worried, I dug the electric blanket out of the closet and covered him with it, then spread the comforter over the top of that. 

I felt weirdly empty, looking at him lying there, being warmed by the blankets instead of me. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to touch him again, to climb in bed with him and keep right on holding him like I had in the shower, but I was afraid to, remembering how he’d once said migraines made him feel like he was made of glass, like he’d shatter into a million pieces if anyone touched him.

But he hadn’t shattered when I held him while he was puking, hadn‘t tried to pull away when I put my arms around him in the shower. Just the opposite, he‘d leaned into the touch, sighed and rested his head on my shoulder as I washed his back, his lips brushing my neck. If he was just being polite, the man had raised the idea of etiquette to an art form. 

He opened his eyes, flinching from the effort even as he did it, and looked at me for a long moment. "It’s okay," he said, "You don’t have to stay." Then his eyes closed again, and with obvious effort, he turned over, settling facedown and cradling the pillow in his arms. Still I wavered, feeling as useless and inadequate as my mother always claimed I was, as worthless as Kyle obviously thought I was since he’d preferred eating a bullet to taking a chance on a life out in the open with me. 

Timmy moaned softly, pure fucking misery on the DL, and tightened his grip on the pillow, pressing his face into it even harder, burrowing into it like a lover’s embrace, hanging onto that pillow the way he sometimes did to me when he was tired or down, or in the instant we made up after a fight. 

Feeling every bit the idiot I knew I was, I slipped out of the bedroom long enough to find a vase for the roses and to put the pinot in the fridge, then checked the lock on the front door and killed the lights. I carried the roses in with me and set them on the dresser so he could see them first thing the next morning, then turned the bedside lamp off as well, wishing I’d thought of it sooner because I could tell how bad the light hurt him. I ducked into the bathroom long enough to grab his glasses. I ran them under the tap and dried them with a tissue, then set them on the nightstand along with his meds and a cup of water. After making sure an empty wastebasket was nearby, I eased onto the bed, trying my best not to make the mattress jiggle, and settled beside him. 

"I hug back, you know." 

Right away, he let go of that pillow and latched onto me. "Thank you," he said, his words the barest ghost of a whisper against the side of my neck. "I’m so glad you‘re here. I thought maybe you’d left. I know you aren’t comfortable…."

"I‘m not going anywhere," I told him, keeping the decibel level at a minimum since sound obviously hurt him even worse than the light. "I just wasn’t sure you’d want me to stay. I know you can’t stand to have anybody around when you get like this."

"But this is _you_. It’s different when it’s _you_."

Hearing that made me feel about ten years old. I wanted to snatch him up and spin him around the room until it seemed like the room was spinning and we were standing still, until we fell on our asses, dizzy and cackling. While he probably would have appreciated the sentiment, I doubted that he’d be all that receptive to the reality, at least not at that exact moment. So I just went right on cradling him in my arms, holding him as tenderly as I knew how, softly kissing him first on the temple, then on the cheek. 

"I want to help you," I told him. "Tell me what I can do to help you."

"This," he murmured. "Just keep doing this." After a couple of minutes, he fumbled for my hand and guided it into his hair. I gently massaged the sensitive spot behind his ear with my thumb, stroked the nape of his neck with my fingertips. "Feels so nice," he said. Then he was out, the man who never slept when he had a migraine was out like a light, peaceful as a baby in my arms, his breath a warm tickle against my throat. 

I was right, Timmy needed me. I mean he really needed me, needed me in a way nobody had ever needed me before. It scared me a little, but it was a good kind of scared, an awestruck revelation that for the first time in my life I was vital to someone, that nobody else could do for him what I was doing. For some reason I’ll never understand, Timmy’d decided I mattered.

Donald Strachey _mattered._


End file.
